Town fears Wal-Mart loss

East Dundee stunned by real estate listing

When the tiny village of East Dundee landed one of the first Wal-Mart stores in the Chicago area 15 years ago, officials gave the retail giant a tax break as a welcome present.

Now it seems Wal-Mart Co. is planning to pack up its wares and leave the Kane County town. Apparently, however, it forgot to give notice to the village, its customers or even employees.

East Dundee officials were stunned to learn via a commercial real estate listing last week that Wal-Mart would vacate the 120,000-square-foot store at Higgins Road and Dundee Avenue by winter of 2007.

Losing the store would blow a huge hole in the village's budget. The Wal-Mart provided $365,000 of the village's $1.9 million in sales tax revenue for 2004-05, interim Village Manager Paul Nicholson said.

Wal-Mart spokesman John Bisio called the listing premature and said he had no knowledge of plans to shut the East Dundee store but would not rule it out.

After seeing the listing, concerned East Dundee leaders met immediately with the local store manager, who was unaware his store was targeted for closing, Nicholson said. Officials hope a formal meeting with Wal-Mart executives will clarify the situation.

The consensus among officials was that someone connected with Wal-Mart had jumped the gun inadvertently. "Somebody's got egg on their face somewhere," Nicholson said.

The two-page, full-color brochure for the East Dundee store, complete with aerial photos of the site, was produced and distributed by an Indianapolis-based commercial real estate firm.

The listing touts the vehicle traffic on adjacent highways and the proximity of other stores, including Spring Hill Mall 2 miles away in West Dundee.

Officials acknowledge that the East Dundee store may no longer be adequate to display the type and volume of items that newer Wal-Marts stock, but that doesn't allay the concerns of officials.

"It's not like somebody slipped it in the fax, and it went out by mistake," Trustee Frank Scarpelli said. "I don't think that somebody `oopsed' on it."

The village is anxious to meet with Wal-Mart to prevent the move or broker a relocation in East Dundee, Village President Jerald Bartels said.

"If they are going to move, we'd like to know why and if there's some means to keep the door open," Bartels said. "Obviously, we'd like to see Wal-Mart stay. We'll do everything we can do to accommodate that."

East Dundee consultants are drawing up plans to designate the Higgins-Dundee intersection a tax increment financing district to spur economic redevelopment.

Wal-Mart may have second thoughts about leaving East Dundee if it learns more about the village's TIF plans, Trustee James Carlini said.

The owner of the nearby Santa's Village has ambitious plans to rejuvenate the vintage theme park and generate more traffic, Carlini said.

Nonetheless, small communities such as East Dundee, with a population of 2,955, must learn to be less reliant on only one source of revenue, he said.

"This points to a need to diversify our revenue streams," Carlini said. "This is a great wake-up call because it shows you can't have all your eggs in one basket."